Pre-Previews

Hakkasan, Coming in November, Gets Rendered

The grand central bar, which will have 25 seats for dining, lanky blonde not included.
The grand central bar, which will have 25 seats for dining, lanky blonde not included. Photo: Courtesy of Gilles & Boissier

Hakkasan, the new, way upscale Chinese restaurant that’s expanding from London (they just opened a New York location in April) to the One Kearny building is taking shape, and today we have the first renderings from the development team and French architects Gilles & Boissier. The design for the S.F. location is pretty gorgeous, featuring a series of wooden “cages” that form screens over the large windows along Market and Geary Streets, lending the place the cloistered air of an Asian temple or well shaded tropical palace. One more rendering below.

The plan is to serve dim sum daily until 3 p.m., and to serve dinner at least until 11:30, if not later on some nights. Executive chef Ho Chee Boon, who opened the Michelin-starred London location, will be flying out to oversee the opening, along with several of the chefs who helped open the New York spot, and a few local hires who are in the works.

There will be a total of 175 seats in the place, including a grand 25-seat bar in the center with a luminous blue-glass top.

Also, since this place is in the heart of the city at the edge of the Financial District (and across from all the high-rollers at the Ritz residences), there will be two private dining rooms, one that seats ten and one that seats twenty, both luxuriously decorated.

Basically, you can expect the kind of Chinese food one might have had at Cecilia Chiang’s Mandarin back in the day, only fancier, more modern, and designed for the sophisticated modern palate (one of the more luxe dishes at the New York location is noodles with scallops, lobster, and black truffles). And you can expect the expense-account crowd to descend en masse.


A view of one of the “caged” dining areas at Hakkasan San Francisco.


Earlier: Upscale Chinese Place Hakkasan Confirms Downtown S.F. Location

Hakkasan, Coming in November, Gets Rendered